'ArmA III' to be Steam exclusive

Bohemia Interactive have confirmed that their upcoming title, ArmA III, will be exclusive to Valve's Steam.

The announcement was made via the developer's blog, where Joris-Jan van ‘t Land stated;

“Not only is Arma 3 PC-exclusive, but now we have decided to make it Steam-exclusive as well. Since we expect this will upset some of our fans, I’d like to take the time to honestly explain our motivations.”

Land stated that Steam is a proven distributor and provides a smoother gameplay experience. Land also stated that Steam allows for quicker patching and pretty much eliminates piracy.

“Think of it what you want, but piracy is affecting us as a business. However, Bohemia Interactive has tried to grow with the evolution of the Internet, rather than to fight it.

“We have removed intrusive Digital Rights Management (DRM) from our games several months after release, but cannot afford to launch without such technologies. We strongly believe the best anti-piracy comes from offering valuable online services that people are willing to invest in.

“Supporting that philosophy: we saw we could not deliver in-house solutions on time, but could take Steam’s and expand upon them. It will be possible to run Steam in Offline mode, and still play the game (with the exception of online services obviously, including multiplayer itself).”